Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Although Ensei Yuka was not born at the time of World War II, he carefully studied everything about World War II—especially its major event, the catastrophe caused by the atomic bomb that reduced hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to ashes. big bang. Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945, 8:15 a.m. -- a bawdy killing act, a demonstration of might by a nation that had already won the war.Yuga has accepted all this.But what he can never accept is that the atomic bomb made him lose his mother at birth.His mother died of dystocia—complications from radiation toxins that had plagued him for years. In 1945, before Yuka was born, his mother, like many friends, volunteered at the Burn Center in Hiroshima.It was in that place that she became a survivor of a nuclear explosion - Fallout Man.Nineteen years later, when she was thirty-six years old, she was lying in the delivery room, bleeding profusely, and she knew she was going to die.She wondered if death would free her from her last fear, that her only son would be deformed.

Yuka's father hadn't even looked at his son.Overwhelmed by the death of his beloved wife, and told by nurses that he was a defective child who might not survive that night, he disappeared from the hospital in grief and shame, never to return.Encheng Yuka was fostered in someone else's house, and thus became the child of a moth. In the dead of night, Yuga would stare blankly at his twisted fingers holding a Dharma doll, vowing revenge - revenge on the one who took his mother, humiliated his father and made him abandon him of that country.But he didn't know that fate was secretly manipulating everything.

In February of the year Youga was 12, a computer manufacturer called Friendsa's adoptive parents and asked if they would allow the disabled child to participate in their newly developed keyboarding test group for disabled children.The adoptive parents agreed. Even though Ensei Yuka had never seen a computer before, he seemed to know how to use it innately.Computers have opened up worlds for him that he never could have imagined.Before long, he fell in love with computers with all his heart. As he grew up day by day, Yuka was able to teach others and earn money for himself. Finally, he won a scholarship from Doshisha University.Soon, Yuga's name spread all over Tokyo, and he became a well-known "disabled young genius"-a disabled genius.

Youga later learned about the Pearl Harbor incident and the evils of Japan's war.His hatred of America slowly waned.He became a devout Buddhist and forgot his childhood oath of revenge.He believes that forgiveness is the only way to the other side. By the age of twenty, Ensei Yuka was almost the idol of computer programmers.IBM offered him a work visa and a job in Texas.Youjia naturally readily accepts this.Three years later, he left IBM and moved to New York to write software on his own.He joined the new bandwagon of public-key cryptography and made his fortune programming. Like many top encryption programmers, Yuka was recruited to the NSA.Fate has taunted him again - an opportunity to work at the heart of the very government of the country he had sworn to exact revenge on.He decided to go for an interview.After meeting Commissioner Strathmore, those doubts in his mind disappeared.They had a candid conversation about Yuka's background, about his possible hatred of America, and about his future.Yuga took a polygraph test and a rigorous five-week psychological profiling, which he passed.Devotion to Buddhism has replaced hatred in his heart.Four months later, Ensei Tomoka joined the NSA's Cryptography Division.

Despite his high income, Yuka rides his moped to work and eats lunch boxes at his desk instead of joining the others for prime steak and Vichy gazpacho.Everyone in the Cryptography Department respected him.He was brilliant, the most creative man they had ever seen.He is kind, honest, and taciturn, with an impeccable code of conduct.Moral perfection was his highest aim.It was for this reason that Youga's dismissal from the NSA and subsequent deportation caused such an uproar. Like other members of the Cryptography Division, Tomoeka was involved in the TRANSLTR project, which he believed, if successful, would only be used to crack e-mails that had been approved in advance by the Justice Department.The NSA's use of TRANSLTR was subject to a federal court order that the FBI needed to install bugs.TRANSLTR needs to be installed with a password-required program that is temporarily kept by a third party under an agreement between the Federal Reserve System and the Department of Justice, so that the files can be cracked.The move is designed to prevent the NSA from indiscriminately listening to the normal communications of law-abiding citizens around the world.

However, when it came time to enter the program, the TRANSLTR workers were told that the plans had changed.Because of the urgency of the NSA's work related to counterterrorism, TRANSLTR will be a stand-alone code-breaking device whose day-to-day operations will be under the control of the NSA itself. Ensei Yuka was enraged.This essentially means that the NSA can read anyone's email and block it without anyone noticing.Strathmore tries to get Ensei to see TRANSLTR as a means of enforcing the law, But nothing works.Youjia firmly believes that this practice is a gross violation of human rights.He resigned immediately, and within hours he managed to get in touch with the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, thereby violating NSA secrecy rules.Unsettled, Ensei Tomoka insists on telling the world about a treacherous government with a secret machine capable of prying into the privacy of computer users around the world at will.The NSA had no choice but to stop him.

Ensei Yuka's arrest and deportation drew a lot of attention from online newsgroups and was a regrettable national humiliation.Fearing that Yuka would try to tell the world about TRANSLTR, NSA damage control specialists spread rumors behind Strathmore's back to discredit Yuka.Tomoeka was shut out of the online newsgroups, the global computer organization -- no one would trust a cripple accused of espionage, especially when he was trying to buy his freedom with the absurd claim that the United States had a decryption machine. The strangest thing is that Yuka seems to understand all this, this is just part of the intelligence game.He seemed to have no anger, only determination.As he was deported by security agencies, Yuka spoke his last words to Strathmore calmly.

"We all have the right to secrecy," he said. "I promise we will all do that one day." Susan's heart is beating violently - Ensei Yuka has written a program that can generate an unbreakable code!She could hardly accept the thought. "Digital castles," Strathmore said. "That's what Ensei Yuka calls it. It's unanalyzable counterintelligence. Once this program hits the market, one-third of all sorters with modems will be able to send codes that the NSA can't crack. We The intelligence agency is finished." But Susan's thoughts have nothing to do with the political significance of "digital castle".She is still trying to think about the possibility of such a procedure.She has been deciphering all her life, and she never believes that there is any code that cannot be solved.Every cipher can be cracked - Bergowski's law.She felt like an atheist facing God.

"If this gets out," she said softly, "cryptography will be a useless science." Strathmore nodded. "Our troubles are much more than that." "Can we buy him off? I know he hates us, but can we give him millions of dollars? Can we talk him out of it?" Strathmore smiled: "Millions of dollars? Do you know how much it's worth? Any government in the world is willing to pay a lot. Can you tell our president that we are still wired to spy on Iraqis but no longer Can't decipher the intercepted files? It's not just about the NSA, it's about the entire intelligence system. This approach makes it easier for everyone, and the FBI, CIA, and DEA have become Headless flies. Drug cartels will have no way to find their cargo, big corporations will be able to move money freely without domestic tax revenues, terrorists will be able to talk in secret - all will be messed up."

"This time the Coke broke the New Frontiers of Electronics Foundation." Susan said palely. "The Society knows nothing of what we're doing here," said Strathmore bitterly. "If they knew how many terrorist attacks we've prevented because of our ability to crack codes, they wouldn't be speaking that way." Susan agreed with that, but she also knew it couldn't be.DXC will never know how important TRANSLTR is.TRANSLTR has helped thwart dozens of terrorist attacks, but the information is highly classified and will never be revealed.The reason for the secrecy is simple: the government cannot bear the mass hysteria caused by the leak of news.It's anyone's guess how the public would react to the news that Al Qaeda made two phone calls last year about a nuclear attack on the continental United States.

However, nuclear attack is not the only threat.Just last month, TRANSLTR successfully thwarted a well-planned terrorist attack the NSA had never seen before.An anti-government organization had conspired a plan, its code name was Sherwood Forest, aimed directly at the New York Stock Exchange, and its purpose was to "redistribute wealth."Over a six-day period, members of the group planted 27 non-explosive magnetic launchers in buildings around the trading center that, when triggered, create a powerful magnetic current.The simultaneous firing of these carefully placed transmitters creates a powerful magnetic field that will wipe out all magnetic records in the trading center—computer hard drives, the vast ROM vaults, disk backups, even floppy disks.All records of who owns what will cease to exist. Since the transmitters require timing control of simultaneous transmissions, these magnetic transmitters are interconnected via telephone lines via the Internet.During the two-day final countdown, the transmitters' internal clocks exchanged countless concurrent streams of data with each other.The NSA intercepted the bursts of information in these cyber anomalies, but dismissed them as irrelevant nonsense.But when TRANSLTR cracked its data, analysts immediately recognized the sequence as a countdown to sync with the network.It took them a full three hours to find and remove the transmitter before they left. Susan knew that without TRANSLTR, the NSA was powerless against advanced electronic terrorism.She looked at the monitor that was running, and there was still more than fifteen hours written on it.Even if the program written by Ensei Yuka can now be cracked, the NSA is finished.The code breaking department will also be reduced to cracking no more than two codes per day.Even at the current rate of cracking 150 passwords per day, there will still be a backlog of passwords waiting to be cracked. "Youjia called me last month." Strathmore's words interrupted Susan's thoughts. Susan looked up: "Youjia called you?" He nodded and said, "It's a warning." "Warning you? He hates you." "He told me on the phone that he was perfecting a program for an unbreakable cipher. I didn't believe that." "Then why did he tell you about it?" asked Susan. "Does he want you to buy it?" "No. He wrote a threatening letter." Only then did Susan figure out the ins and outs of the matter. "Of course," she said, a little shocked, "he wants you to restore his reputation." "No." Strathmore said, frowning. "Tomoka's attention is still on TRANSLTR." "A TRANSLTR?" "Exactly. He ordered me to publicly declare to the public that we have TRANSLTR. He said that if we admit that we can read the public's mail at will, he will destroy the 'digital castle'." Susan was a little puzzled. Strathmore shrugged: "Anyway, it was too late. He sent a free copy of 'Digital Castle' on his web site, and anyone could download it." Susan turned pale. "Why is he like this!" "It's just a grandstanding gimmick. There's nothing to worry about. The copy he sent was encrypted and people could download it, but no one could open it. It's really resourceful. It turns out that the original password of the 'Digital Castle' It’s also encrypted and locked tightly.” Susan was surprised: "Yes! Everyone has a copy, but no one can open it." "That's right. Yuka is whetting our appetite." "Have you seen the program?" Strathmore said perplexed: "I haven't seen it, I just said that this program is encrypted." Susan was equally perplexed and said, "Don't we have TRANSLTR? Why not What about unlocking the code?" Susan looked at Strathmore's face before realizing that things were not that simple. "My God!" She gasped, and suddenly understood. "'Digital Fortress' itself is encrypted again." Strathmore nodded and said, "It's not easy!" Susan was indeed shocked. The calculation formula used by "Digital Castle" has been encrypted with "Digital Castle".Youjia sent an extremely absurd math game, but the content of this game was encrypted, and it was encrypted with itself. "It's the 'Billman Safe,'" Susan stammered in awe. Strathmore nodded yes.The Biermann safe is a hypothetical cryptographic scheme in which the maker of the safe draws up a blueprint for a safe that cannot be opened.He wanted to keep the blueprint secret, so he built a safe and locked the blueprint inside.Yuga used the "digital castle" to do the same. He encrypted the math game with the calculation formula outlined in the blueprint, thus keeping the blueprint. "And what about the files in TRANSLTR?" Susan asked. "Like everyone else, I downloaded it from Youjia's website. The NSA is now the proud owner of the 'Digital Fortress' program, but it just won't open." Susan was really surprised by the resourcefulness of Ensei Yuka. He proved to the National Security Bureau that his program was undecipherable without even revealing the program. Strathmore handed Susan a newspaper clipping, a translation of a story in the Nikkei, Japan's equivalent of America's Wall Street Journal, that began by saying that Japanese programmers Ensei Yuka completes a mathematical program that claims to be able to write unbreakable codes.This program is called "Digital Castle", and it can be seen on the Internet.Ensei Yuga is up for grabs.The newspaper went on to say that this matter had aroused great interest in Japan, but the few American software development companies who heard the news of "Digital Castle" thought it was nothing different from the Arabian Nights, like trying to make loess turned into gold.It must be a hoax, they said, don't take it seriously. Susan looked up and asked, "For sale?" Strathmore nodded and said: "Now every software development company in Japan has downloaded the encrypted copy of 'Digital Fortress' and is trying to crack it. But it can't be cracked, and the auction price has been soaring." "It's ridiculous." Susan said angrily, "All newly encrypted files can only be decrypted with TRANSLTR. 'Digital Fortress' is actually just a general public domain algorithm, and these companies can't even decrypt it." "But it's a very clever marketing gimmick," Strathmore said. "Think about it—all brands of bulletproof glass are bulletproof, but if any company dares you to put you on their bulletproof glass One shot, and everyone will flock to it." "So Yuka, the Japanese, really thinks 'Digital Castle' is different? Better than anything else on the market?" "Youka doesn't necessarily think so. But he is a genius, and he is also an idol that hackers adore. If Youka says this program can't be cracked, then it can't be cracked." "But as far as the public knows, they are indeed all unbreakable!" "Yes..." Strathmore thought for a while and said, "This is the case." "What does that mean?" Strathmore sighed and said: "Twenty years ago, no one would have thought that we could break the twelve-bit stream cipher. But technology is developing, and technology is always moving forward. Software developers think that something like Electronic computers like TRANSLTR will appear sooner or later. The rapid development of science and technology will eventually make the current public key program lose its security function and be replaced by a more advanced program." "So 'Digital Castle' is such a thing?" "That's right. No matter how powerful codecracking computers become, a program that is resistant to brute-force techniques is not obsolete. That can become the world standard overnight." Susan took a long breath and said, "God help us!" She said softly, "Can we make an offer?" Strathmore shook his head and said, "Youga gave us this opportunity, and he made it very clear. But this is too risky. If we succeed in the auction, we basically admit that we are afraid of him." With this program, we are tantamount to admitting to the public that we not only have TRANSLTR, but also admit that we cannot crack the 'Digital Fortress'." "Approximately what time?" Strathmore frowned and said, "Youga intends to announce the highest bidder at noon tomorrow." Susan felt her stomach tighten and asked, "And then?" "According to the plan, it should be Yuga who will hand over the master key to the highest bidder." "It's part of Yuga's trick. Everyone got the program, that's why Yuga auctioned off the master key to break it." Susan sighed, "Yeah!" It was wonderful, clean.Youjia has already encrypted the "Digital Castle", and he controls the master key for decryption.She thought it was really elusive, maybe there, scribbled on that piece of paper in Yuka's pocket was the sixty-four-character skeleton key that would end American intelligence-gathering forever. Thinking of the seriousness of the situation, Susan suddenly felt uncomfortable.Youjia will hand over the master key to the person with the highest bid, and the company represented by this person will open the electronic file of the "Digital Castle", and then put the program into a tamper-proof chip. Every computer will be pre-installed with a "digital castle" chip.Since ordinary encryption programs will eventually be eliminated, no manufacturer has ever thought of producing encryption chips.But "digital castle" will never be eliminated.With its ability to rotate plaintext, brute force techniques simply cannot find the correct passkey.A new digital encryption standard.now and forever.Every cipher is unbreakable.Bankers, brokers, terrorists, spies.The whole world - an encrypted program. The world is in chaos. "Is there any other way?" Susan asked tentatively.She knows all too well that, even at NSA, emergencies call for urgent measures. "We can't kill him yet, if that's what you're asking." That's exactly what Susan was asking.In all her years at the NSA, Susan had heard rumors about this loosely organized organization of the most sophisticated assassinations in the world—hiring imprisoned killers to do the dirty work for the intelligence agencies. Strathmore shook his head and said, "Yuka is so smart, we don't have the chance." Susan felt a little inexplicably relieved, and asked again: "Is he protected?" "not quite." "Hidden?" Strathmore said with a shrug. "Yuka left Japan, and he's going to check the auction on the phone. But we know where he is." "So you're not going to take action?" "Not going to. He has a talisman. He gave a copy of the master key to a third party, just in case." Of course it will.Susan secretly admired it.A patron saint. "So if something happens to Youjia, this mysterious person will sell the master key?" "It's worse than this. Whoever dares to touch Youjia, that third party will publish it publicly." Susan asked a little puzzled: "Publish that master key publicly?" Strathmore nodded and said: "Send it on the Internet, publish it in newspapers, on radio and television, etc. In fact, he has intentionally or unintentionally leaked the master key." Susan's eyes widened: "Download casually?" "Exactly. Yuka may be thinking that if he dies, he won't need the money—why not give the world a little parting gift?" The two were silent for a while.Susan took a deep breath, as if trying to suck in the horrible truth.Ensei Yuka wrote an uncrackable program and hooked us all into it. She stood up suddenly.He said firmly: "We have to get in touch with Youjia. There must be some way to persuade him not to reveal the master key to the public. We can give him three times the highest auction price. We can restore his reputation." "Too late," said Strathmore.He took a deep breath, and continued, "Someone found that Ensei Yuka died in Seville, Spain this morning."